


open

by ssstrychnine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Shaving, post s08e03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-25 22:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18711145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssstrychnine/pseuds/ssstrychnine
Summary: listen, i write the same thing over and over again idc everyone likes a getting together fic right. i'm sure tomorrow's episode will ruin it anyway. this was written for a prompton tumblrand is posted there too. lmk what you think! thank you for reading!





	open

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Open](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20323759) by [ssstrychnine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssstrychnine/pseuds/ssstrychnine), [Sunny_Midday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunny_Midday/pseuds/Sunny_Midday)



When Jaime knocks on Brienne’s door, with a scowl on his face and a ragged chunk cut out of his beard, she has to laugh. He had disappeared almost immediately after the pyres had been lit, muttering something about needing to get the death off him, and it seems he’s tried to do that with a blunt blade and one hand. He looks lopsided and furious.  
  
“You need a sharper knife," she says, stepping aside to let him in.  
  
“It’s not the knife that’s the problem,” he mutters. “Something's... wrong, I’ve been able to do it before, but-.” He holds out his left hand, flat against the air, and it’s trembling, throwing flickering shadows against the walls in the lantern light. He is not wearing anything on his right. He shrugs, drops his hand back to his side.  
  
"And you want... me to help?"  
  
"I didn't know where else to go to," he says, and he laughs, shortly, and turns on his heel and then turns again so he's back where he started. "I'll ask Tyrion if-"  
  
"No," interrupts Brienne. Her hands twitch at her sides. She's thinking that they don't _do_ this. They're friends, they're _close_ , especially now, but they don't really... touch. But she's also thinking about how badly his hand is shaking and how he'd looked when he touched a blade to her shoulder and how he looks now, frantic and exhausted. It has not been long since they were killing dead creatures together. Saving each other's lives. "I'll do it," she says.  
  
Jaime doesn't say anything, but he nods and his shoulders fall and the edges of him seem less sharp then. Brienne turns away from him and pulls the chair out from her small table, the only piece of furniture she has more than a bed and a chest for her armour. She sets the chair in the centre of the room.  
  
“Sit,” she tells Jaime, and he does as he’s asked, without question.  
  
She has water, brought up from the godswood in a bucket, and she has a tarnished hand mirror and she has a bar of soap, made of olive and rosemary and stamped with the Dorne sun and spear. Sansa had given it to her, because Sansa liked giving gifts and Arya refused to accept any, and Brienne had kept it in a little silver box, scared of wasting something so nice. She pours some of the water into a shallow copper bowl and she sets it on the floor, the mirror and the silver box beside it.  
  
"Knife," she says and Jaime pulls a dagger from a sheath at his waist and hands it to her.  
  
"Try not to kill me," he says, but he sounds more tired than teasing.  
  
Brienne hesitates then, trying to think of the best way for her to do this, and then realising what it is and trying to pretend she hasn't. She taps the knife blade against the back of her hand. She licks her lips. She brings a lantern closer and it turns Jaime to dark velvet and warm gold. There is no other way. She kneels between his legs and then she shuffles closer, so that his thighs are pressed against her hips, and she can better reach his face. He doesn’t say anything, but he watches her and his expression is serious, almost grave, and she thinks maybe he knows that if he laughed at her now, with him under her hands and her between his legs, she might break and run. Her jaw is so tight she feels like she can hear her muscles moving and she shuts her eyes for a moment and forces herself to relax. When she opens them, he’s still watching her, but his expression has gentled, softened into something easy and sweet. She looks down. Her heart is beating soft and wild against against her ribs. His hand is on his knee and his knuckles are white with the grip and that steadies her somehow, knowing he's as unsure about what this might mean as she is. She turns away from him briefly, to get the soap, and then she dips it into the bowl of water and lathers it between her palms and refuses to think about how callused her hands are.  
  
When she presses a palmful of the lather to his cheek, he inhales so sharply that she jerks away and loses most of it. The soap falls down his face, dripping from his jaw and wetting his collar.  
  
"I'm sorry, I-." She stops when he starts to laugh, bright and loud, his eyes crinkling at the corners. She doesn't break or run. She rolls her eyes at him and smiles and picks up the bar of soap again.  
  
This time, she holds his face steady in one hand, fingertips against his jaw, her thumb dipping down to his throat, and she tilts it to the side, so she can get the soap on properly. He's still smiling, and it's clumsy and messy and stupid, but it sticks. The knife comes next, and it's sharp, blue-bladed and leather-hilted, and she holds her breath when she makes the first cut. She can feel his pulse under her thumb. She drags the blade carefully along his skin, from the edge of his cheekbone to the square of his jaw, and his eyes are closed and stay closed.  
  
When it works, and the hair falls away with the knife, she hums in surprise, and wipes off the blade on the cloth slung over her shoulder.  
  
"Were you so sure you'd kill me?" Jaime asks. He's opened his eyes and his voice is raw and ragged. He holds her gaze with a determination that makes her breathless and she is the first to look away.  
  
"Hush," she says, fussing with the soap. "Turn your head."  
  
She works as carefully as she can, first one side of his face and then his neck, tilting his chin back with two fingers, bringing the blade down the curve of his throat, his head half-cradled in her hand, so that he is open and bared to her. It's a vulnerable position, she thinks, and she drags the blade downwards, and knows that she could kill him, if she wanted to, and also knows that she would never, _could_ never, and wipes the blade and keeps going.  
  
He watches her through most of it, eyes half-lidded, the way she bites her lip or blinks too much and can't meet his eye, even close as they are _._ It makes him smile, wry and crooked and familiar. It makes her heart hurt.  
  
She's in love with him, she knows this, and has known it for a long time. At least before, with them on opposite sides, she could tell herself it was impossible. Now... it still seems unlikely, but she thinks she could be convinced to consider other possibilities. Not dead, not enemies, not caught on cruel beauty or self-loathing, but something else... together. He came to her and asked her to put a knife to his throat. He came to her before fighting death and they fought it together. He came to her and offered her a knighthood, and touched her shoulders with his sword.  
  
When she's close to finishing, she cuts him. Her hand slips, and then there is a thin red line at the sharp edge of his cheek. Brienne flinches and pulls away and Jaime's right arm jerks, like he means to grab her, and then he swears and she freezes.  
  
"I'm sorry-"  
  
"Brienne," he says. " _Brienne_ , if we were sparring, this would mean nothing, it-."  
  
"This isn't sparring, you've trusted me to-"  
  
"And I trust you still," says Jaime. He holds her gaze, expression serious. "It's a _scratch_ and if you leave me with half a face I swear I'll never forgive you."  
  
Brienne scoffs at that and bites her lip and studies his face. The cut is nothing, barely bleeding. There are worse scars on his face already. He _trusts_ her. He's said so before, in water, when she still thought him irredeemable. She leans forward and presses the flat of the blade to the cut, covering it with the steel, and Jaime shuts his eyes, his lashes casting shadows across his cheeks.  
  
"Sit still," she says, quietly, and she takes his face in her hand again, and finishes the job.  
  
He looks, somehow, both younger and tireder without his beard. Handsome, of course, because he always will be, even with his scars and his hair grey at the temples and the lines on his face. She pushes his hair back, tilts his face from one side to the other, to check for anything she's missed. Satisfied, she hands him the mirror.  
  
“It’s passable,” he says, peering into the glass.  
  
"Shall I use Oathkeeper next time?"  
  
"Valyrian steel never loses its edge."  
  
She laughs and then she takes the mirror from him, and puts it down, and reaches out and touches his cheek, damp and cold and clean, and he sighs and leans into her palm. There is so much death between them, flesh and blood and bone, but it doesn't seem to matter anymore. They've been bound since Catelyn Stark unchained him. Brienne supposes that she's lived up to her oath after all, Arya and Sansa both alive in Winterfell. She did not think that Jaime would be with her.  
  
"I am... glad you came to me," she says, quietly, and he turns his head and presses his lips to her palm and she sighs and leans forward and rests her forehead against his.  
  
"I've followed you across a continent," he murmurs. "And I'll continue for as long as you'll allow it."  
  
He looks achingly earnest, and she thinks of knights and ladies and honour, the sort of stories she loved as a child, the sort she used to think were true. He reaches across the space between them, and he touches her lower lip with the pad of his thumb, and then her cheek with the backs of his fingers, and then the hollow of her throat. His hand is steady now, but his breathing is shallow and shaky. It's better than a story or a song, to have him with her like this.  
  
She leans forward and puts her arms around his neck, pressing her face into his shoulder. He smells of rosemary and olives, and underneath of smoke and metal, like she must too. He wraps his arms around her waist and presses his closed mouth to her throat and they stay like this until someone moves the wrong way and the chair wobbles under them and they almost pitch right over. Jaime laughs and pulls back and Brienne frowns and gets to her feet. She holds out a hand and Jaime takes it and when they're standing together he does not let go. It is dark in her room, like it is dark across all of Winterfell. All of the seven kingdoms are grieving and it will get worse, before the end. Brienne kisses him, to keep from losing her mind, and because she wants to and because he's warm and she's sick of the cold. She reaches out and runs her thumb along the cut on his cheek and then she kisses him and he smiles against her mouth and pulls her closer.

 

**Author's Note:**

> listen, i write the same thing over and over again idc everyone likes a getting together fic right. i'm sure tomorrow's episode will ruin it anyway. this was written for a prompt [on tumblr](https://oneangryshot.tumblr.com/) and is posted there too. lmk what you think! thank you for reading!


End file.
